…Drummer Ted Byrnes and electric guitarist Han-Earl Park launch into fast, busy abstraction. Byrnes tosses kitchen equipment around his kit, keeping up an ever-changing lightheaded commentary. Park applies every technique to his detuned ax—tapping, sliding, muting, twisting the machine heads. It’s simultaneously disciplined and barbaric. For the second time in a week, I witness a guitarist (the other was Allan Holdsworth) sounding as if he’s playing backward, and this time it’s clear that the method involves heavy pumping of a volume pedal. Between assaults, Park re-detunes his guitar. Ever ready for audience participation, [G. E.] Stinson yells, “Dude, why bother?” Park explains that he’s careful to avoid accidental tonality. [Read the rest…]

about the performers

Ted Byrnes is a drummer/percussionist living is Los Angeles. An alumni of the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, he comes from a jazz background and has since made his home in the worlds of free improvisation, electro-acoustic music, and noise.

With musical interests ranging from funk to gamelan to the singular beauty of everyday ambient sounds, Ted’s playing is often viewer as more textural or even melodic than rhythmic per se, and generally uses a ‘prepared’ drum kit. The inspiration came not only from other drummers and musicians, bus also from seeing artists in other mediums expanding their palettes.

Ted divides his playing time between a variety of ad hoc free improvisation situations. Additionally, Ted has performed in the ensembles of Charlemagne Palestine, David Watson, Ace Farren Ford (LAFMS), and as part of a Scratch Orchestra along with Steve Roden, Rick Potts, David Muller and others. Other projects have included percussion for a projector/light installation by legendary Fluxus artist Jeff Perkins, playing as part of Gabie Strong’s UR Rituals project made possible by the University of California, and performing in ensembles and solo at a variety of Los Angeles galleries and museums, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

In 2010, Ted was the recipient of a grant from SASSAS (the Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound) and Meet the Composer to compose and perform a work for the 25th anniversary of the city of West Hollywood. The work was a guided improvisation via graphic score in 5 movements for percussion, electric bass, laptop/feedback generator and accordion. The convert was on June 26th, 2010. Just prior to that, Ted also played as part of the 10 year anniversary event for SASSAS alongside musicians such as Nels Cline, Tom Recchion, Chas Smith, Dennis Duck, Wadada Leo Smith and many more.

Improviser, guitarist and constructor Han-earl Park has been working within/from/around traditions of fuzzily idiomatic, on occasion experimental, mostly open improvised musics for over fifteen years, sometimes engineering theater, sometimes inventing ritual. He feels the gravitational pull of collaborative, multi-authored contexts, and has performed in clubs, theaters, art galleries, concert halls, and (ad-hoc) alternative spaces in Austria, Denmark, Germany, England, Ireland, The Netherlands, Scotland and the USA.

A constructor of low- and mid-tech electronic and software devices, and an occasional score-maker, he is interested in partial, and partially frustrating, context-specific artifacts; artifacts that amplify social relations and corporeal identities and agencies, and, in some instances, objects that obscure the location of the author.

He is part of Mathilde 253 with Charles Hayward and Ian Smith, is involved in collaborations with Bruce Coates, Franziska Schroeder, Alex Fiennes and Murray Campbell. Recent performances include Mathilde 253 with Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith; duo concerts with Paul Dunmall, and with Richard Barrett; trios with Matana Roberts and Mark Sanders, with Catherine Sikora and Ian Smith, and with Jin Sangtae and Jeffrey Weeter; as part of the Evan Parker-led 20-piece improvising ensemble; and the performance of Pauline Oliveros’ ‘Droniphonia’ alongside the composer. Park has also recently performed with Lol Coxhill, Pat Thomas, Corey Mwamba, Mark Trayle, Pedro Rebelo, Alexander Hawkins, Mike Hurley, Chick Lyall, Thomas Buckner and Kato Hideki. Festival appearances include Sonorities (Belfast), Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), dialogues festival (Edinburgh), VAIN Live Art (Oxford), and the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology Festival (California). His recordings have been released by labels including Slam Productions and DUNS Limited Edition.

Park founded Stet Lab, a monthly improvised music space in Cork, Ireland, and taught improvisation at the UCC Department of Music.